Coppola's Short Biography
...filmmaking, heralding a golden age which he defined through masterpieces ranging from The Conversation to Apocalypse Now to his crowning achievement, The Godfather. One of his era's most impassioned talents, Coppola was also one of its most erratic; in both his career and his personal life, he experienced euphoric triumph and shattering tragedy, pushing the limits of the cinematic form with a daring and fervor which became the hallmarks of not only his greatest successes but also his most notorious failures.
The son of composer Carmine Coppola, he was born April 7, 1939, in Detroit, MI. Raised in New York, he began making amateur films while still a child and later enrolled in the famed UCLA Film School in 1960. In 1966 he collaborated on the screenplays of the features Is Paris Burning? and This Property Is Condemned. In 1968 he completed his first studio film, the box-office bomb Finian's Rainbow, followed the next year by The Rain People.
When he was just 31, he was approached by Paramount to adapt the Mario Puzo best-seller The Godfather. The film was released in 1972 to unprecedented critical and commercial success, emerging as one of the highest-grossing films in Hollywood history and netting a total of four Oscars, including awards for Best Actor (Marlon Brando) and Best Picture. A majestic Mafia epic starring Brando as well as Al Pacino, James Caan, and Robert Duvall, The Godfather was declared an instant classic, and its stature only grew in the years following its initial appearance.
Coppola's next move was to write the screenplay for the 1974 adaptation of The Great Gatsby. He then turned to the masterful The Conversation, a taut political thriller which mirrored the events of Watergate and earned the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. At the peak of his powers, Coppola closed out 1974 by premiering The Godfather, Pt. 2, a powerful and...
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